Saturday, October 14, 2006

Loot, Jindo, and Exploring

It never fails. I update my picture on this blog and I immediately get new loot soon after. I really should update more often.

I went to AQ20 today with the guild, and picked up a [Gavel of Qiraji Authority] from the General Rajaxx fight. This is an insane weapon. I have no idea why it isn't epic. Compare it to the [The Unstoppable Force]. It has +16 Int, +19 dmg/heal, +6 mana/5s, in exchange for -4 Str, -2% crit, and a stun. Maybe [The Unstoppable Force] is better, but not by much. The only thing is that the Gavel is a fast weapon (2.2 speed vs 3.8), but as I don't have Seal of Command, it's fine for me. Plus it looks very nice, and rather unique. I'll get a picture up before the next raid. ;)

I also got the [Qiraji Spiked Hilt] for the Exalted Cenarion reward. I do like the sword, but I'm nowhere near the exalted reputation required. I only got the Hilt because no one else wanted it. If anyone has any tips or suggestions for getting to Exalted CC reputation fast, I would love to hear them.

Boss-wise, I got to see and kill Moam for the first time. Interesting fight. We stacked the raid with warlocks for extra mana-draining to make it easy, but it was still fun.

After Moam, the guild went for Hakkar in ZG (ZG having been cleared the previous night). I sat out for the Hakkar fight (first time the guild has killed Hakkar), but came in after for Jin'do the Hexxer. Now that was a fun fight. It took two attempts, but he went down (first Jin'do kill for the guild as well). It's a very chaotic fight. Totems, invisible shades, teleports, dancing skeletons, it's hilarious. I think the reason we won the second fight is because I got mind-controlled much more. Better me than a rogue or fury warrior, after all. :)

So I got some loot, and added Moam and Jin'do to my kill sheet. Not a bad day.

Oh, I almost forgot. Way back in May, I posted about how, as a level 60, I miss the sound when a piece of the map is discovered. Well, I was exploring Deadwind Pass during the Hakkar attempts, and it looks like Blizzard has fixed this problem! The sound played and pieces of the map filled in. I don't know when Blizzard fixed it, and it's a small thing, but it made me smile. Good work, Blizzard!

8 comments:

Sure, you can do quests in Silithus as well, but nothing comes close to the amount of rep you gain while doing AQ20 (especially if Cenarion Favor is up, which it usually is on my server, since I am Alliance).

If you do want to quest for rep though, I would suggest doing the various Field Duty quests. Once you have one of each badge type, you can turn those three in for 200 rep (220 for you, since you are human). While the Logistics quests are very easy (just make/buy the items you need), the Tactics quests generally take a group to complete, and the Combat quests can be soloed, but take forever (speaking from a fellow Paladin).

If you haven't done most/all of the quests in Silithus, you might as well do so. They do give some rep, so it definitely can't hurt. From my experience, though, you gain rep MUCH faster by just running AQ20.

"I think the reason we won the second fight is because I got mind-controlled much more. Better me than a rogue or fury warrior, after all."

This makes me chuckle. You're basically saying it's better that you got MC'ed instead of a much more effective class. Hopefully this will change in the xpac.

Also, the UF is better with Seal of Command, as Ret Pallies like slow 2h'ers, as they get more damage out of it with SoC.

Word is that Avenger's Shield is currently pretty crappy. Cast time, dead zone, long cooldown, low +spell coefficient, and uses spell crit. Pales in comparison to Crusader strike. Right now, it's only novelty is PvP and pulling.

Before I was going to go 30 points into Ret, then 31 in Prot or Holy. The strike is making me rethink that, though, and I might for 41 into Ret. Depends on the gear I can get.

There is a strong arguement in favor of the Gavel. It does allow for a more hybrid style of play, and it is not a bad two hander for SoR usage given it's speed. He may find SoCr more effective. And it's not really weapon speed that Ret paladins find sexy, it's the damage range. The higher the top end damage the better the burst damage is.

I don't use SoC at the moment. I use SotC in raids, and SoR when soloing. I'm keeping TUF in case I spec back to Ret, though. The base dps on the two weapons is the same, but since TUF is slower, it has the higher damage range.

As for the comment that "it's better that you got MC'ed instead of a much more effective class," that's a short-sighted way of looking at it. The problem with a rogue or warrior getting MC'd is that they kill the clothies, which leads to troubles. It's not like we wipe because we don't have a rogue's dps for several seconds.

I can't kill the clothies that fast, so even though the raid loses my effectiveness (damage/heals/cleanses), we don't lose healers/mages on top of that.

Why aren't you stunning the rogues or mages that get MC'ed? Sheeping? Frost Nova? Roots? Where's the CC? If you've taken down hakkar, you should know how to deal with MC'ed people so they don't pose a problem. In all your cleansing and healing, did you forget your hammer of justice button?